My Personal Blog

There's a great collection of Art Deco architecture on Orkney. The best examples are at Hoxa Head on South Ronaldsay. To be honest most people would not class them as Art Deco. Most people would call them wartime gun batteries. But what are these curves, if not pure le Corbusier? Balfour Battery: When form matches function so elegantly? Hoxa Battery: During WWI and WWII, the Royal Navy's

For years historians debated if it was a transcription error. The 'King of Orkney' who attended a meeting with Roman Emperor Claudius at Colchester surely didn't refer to the remote Orkneys. The unsophisticated, illiterate Caledonians always had been Rome's enemies. It was absurd to believe the remotest of them had been plugged into mainstream Mediterranean politics. And if it wasn't a

A skein of honking geese hug the contours of the land. A black bag, ripped, flaps against a barbed wire fence. A window creaks in an abandoned house. The wind gets everywhere, like water. Ducks are alarmed at my approach. By the time I reach them, they are only ripples in the burn. A hailstorm sweeps the landscape. I bow my head and plough on. The green earth has turned white. A hint of red

We arrived in Orkney for a short break. Orkney in February? But why not? Perhaps we would see the Northern Lights. Northern stars: "You should have been here in winter!" said the first man we talked to. I looked around. There was snow on the ground. Isn't this winter? He shook his head. The sun was shining. Loch of Harray: We returned to a favourite spot. Above, the Kitchener Memorial.